1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a piezo-electric vibrator to be used in devices such as a portable telephone and a portable information terminal.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventional piezo-electric vibrators have, for example, a structure providing a lid and a base having a hollow portion having a space in which vibration of a piezo-electric vibrator piece is not disturbed at upper and lower faces of the vibrator consisting of the piezo-electric vibrator piece and a frame-shaped portion integral with the base end portion thereof.
An electrode pattern of an exciting electrode film and the like formed on the individual vibrator piece gets an electric characteristic by making the vibrator piece excite individually in the case of mass production of wafer units by forming plural members of the above piezo-electric vibrators on a wafer of large area. As a result, each of these electrode patterns need to be arranged independently.
In the foregoing conventional piezo-electric vibrator, the independent electrode patterns of the wafer forming plural vibrators is adjusted by obtaining the characteristics of the individual vibrator pieces by joining members at high temperature and applying a voltage, and putting a junction film between the members, such as an anode function. Thereafter, a spattered film is applied to the lid body in order to short each electrode pattern. Thus, all electrode patterns are connected and power is supplied to junction films of both faces of a substrate at the same time.
FIG. 1 is an exploded perspective view of each component of a lid, a vibrator, and a base constructing the conventional piezo-electric vibrator. FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the upper face of the conventional piezo-electric vibrator. FIG. 3 is a sectional view of the conventional piezo-electric vibrator.
As shown in FIG. 1, the conventional piezo-electric vibrator is a vibrator having a vibrator piece 110 of a tuning fork type consisting of a crystal (SiO2), for example, and provides a vibrator 20 having the vibrator piece 110, and a lid 10 and a base 30 constituting a pair of lid bodies sealing airtightly the vibrator piece 110 in a state enabling it to vibrate by being joined by both faces of the vibrator 20. The conventional vibrator 20 has the vibrator piece 110 of tuning fork type and the frame-shaped portion 100 connected to the base end portion thereof integratedly and surrounding the periphery of the vibrator piece 110 as shown in FIG. 1, FIG. 2, and FIG. 3.
As shown in FIG. 1 and FIG. 3, the lid 10 and the base 30 being a pair of lid bodies are formed of soda lime glass and the like, for example, and have a hollow cavity 90 forming a space in which vibration of the vibrator piece 110 is not disturbed at an area corresponding to the vibrator piece 110.
In the vibrator 20 having the lid 10 and the base 30, an exiting electrode film 80 for vibrating the vibrator piece 110 and an exiting electrode film 81 having a different polarity from the exiting electrode film 80 are formed at two faces of the front and the back and sides as shown in FIG. 3. Further, joining films 40 and 41 consisting of the same material as the exiting electrode films 80 and 81 and being actual junction portions between the lid 10 and the base 30 are provided at an area corresponding to the frameshaped portion 100.
The lid 10 and the base 30 are joined to the upper and lower faces of the vibrator 20 using these joining films 40 and 41 by so-called anode junction described in detail later.
In the manufacturing process of the above conventional vibrator, plurality of vibrators 20, lids 10, and bases 30 shown in FIG. 1 are formed on a wafer using etching by photolithography. As shown in FIG. 4, the vibrators 20 are formed on a sheet of crystal wafer 130 being a first wafer. The vibrator 20 is constructed by a frame-shaped portion 100, plural vibrator pieces 11 and the like. That is, plural vibrators 20 are formed integratedly on the crystal wafer 130.
At the same time, a through-hole 121 is formed between crystal vibrator pieces 110 in a longitudinal direction of the vibrator piece 110, and an inner face of the through-hole 121 becomes a part of the side face of the vibrator 20 after cutting the crystal wafer 130.
The lid 10 and base 30 are formed on glass wafers consisting of soda lime glass, for example. Plural hollow cavities 90 are formed on these wafers through etching by photolithography corresponding to each vibrator piece 110 of the crystal wafer 130. That is, plural lids 10 are formed integratedly on a glass wafer being a second wafer, and plural bases 30 are formed integratedly on a glass wafer being a third wafer. At the same time, a through-hole larger than the through-hole 121 of the crystal wafer 130 is formed at a part corresponding to the through-hole 121 of the crystal wafer 130 being the first wafer of the third wafer, and inner face of the through-hole formed at the third glass wafer becomes a part 122 of the side face of the base 30 after cutting the glass wafer.
The exciting electrode films 80 and 81 of the upper and lower faces and side face of vibrator piece 110 of vibrator 20, joining films 40 and 41 of upper and lower faces of the frame-shaped portion 100, and an ejecting electrode 50 of the base end portion of the crystal vibration piece 110 are formed by the same spattered film formed on the whole surface of the crystal wafer 130 as shown in FIG. 4. Although Al, Cr, and alloy of these and the like are used for the material of the spattered film, Al is used for forming the spattered film in the related art. Patterning the Al spattered film by photolithography, electrodes of the exciting electrodes 80 and 81, the ejecting electrode 50, etc. and electrode patterns consisting of the joining films 40 and 41, etc. are formed at upper and lower faces of each vibrator 20.
The exciting electrode film 80 being one pole of the vibrator piece 110 is extended and connected to the joining film 40 formed at the frame-shaped portion 100, and the exciting electrode film 81 being the another pole of the vibrator piece 110 is extended and connected to the joining film 41 formed at the frame-shaped portion 100. Further the joining film 41 is extended to the surface of the opposite side of the vibrator 20 through the end portion side face 121 of short direction of the frame-shaped portion 100 at the base end portion side of the vibrator piece 110 of the vibrator 20. At least a part of the joining film 40 and the joining film 41 formed at both faces of the vibrator 20 are formed so as to surround the periphery of the hollow cavities 90 of the lid 10 and the base 30 respectively at the both sides. Thus, inside of the hollow cavities 90 is sealed airtightly after joining.
At this stage, an electrode pattern 160 of each vibrator 20 is independent as shown in FIG. 4 and it is possible to adjust a characteristic of the vibrator using the ejecting electrode 50 different from the joining film 40 in polarity. At this stage, adjustment of the frequency of the vibrator piece 110 is carried out.
FIG. 5(A) to FIG. 5(D) show a partial process of forming the piezo-electric vibrator according to the conventional art. In the method, a foreign body is adhered to the joining film 40 (or 41) during formation of the film of foundations 200 as shown in FIG. 5(B) and during laser trimming of a weight 210 when adjusting the frequency as shown in FIG. 5(D). By the existence of the foreign body, a gap generates between the lid 10 and the joining film 40, or the base 30 and the joining film 41 at an anode junction, and further a junction between the lid 10 and the joining film 40, or the base 30 and the joining film 41 is disturbed.
However, in the above method, the characteristic after the junction has a dispersion by a contaminant of the foreign body generating during forming of the film process for adjusting a frequency of the vibrator and for laser trimming.
Further, dispersion of the characteristic generates even by an electric resistance value which each short spattered film has and the generation of a level difference is caused by the short spattered film.